What is it about?
The conceptual framework of this study draws from Nietzsche’s writings on plants and how they resonate with the plant hieroglyph that Jagadish Chandra Bose, a distinguished Bengali physicist who moved from physics to plant physiology, introduced in his book Plant Autographs and Their Revelations, as well as John C. Ryan’s discussion of how contemporary poets explore the potential of both human and botanical subjects. The first part of this chapter explores the dissolution of the boundaries between humans and plants in Reshma Aquil’s poems. The enigmatic interplay between plants and poetry is also investigated in the light of Gaston Bachelard’s argument that childhood is vegetal. The second part of this chapter focuses on Sumana Roy’s books: How I Became a Tree and V.I.P. Very Important Plant. A poet and literary scholar who seeks to decode the languages of plants, Sumana Roy explains why she wants to turn into a tree in her book entitled How I Became a Tree. The boundary between humanity and plants becomes increasingly blurred in Roy’s poetry collection: V.I.P. Very Important Plant. The poems in this collection transcend the limitations of anthropocentric thought by tracing the interconnections that exist within all living things and seeking to discover the desire for growth and loyalty to earth among plants. Both Aquil and Roy enhance the move away from anthropocentric to plant-based poetry enriched by botanical imagination. They also demonstrate how early experiences and being close to nature during a person's formative years are crucial in developing environmental sensitivity and raising awareness of environmental issues.
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Why is it important?
Through their plant-based poetry enhanced by botanical imagination, Reshma Aquil and Sumana Roy both challenge readers to change their anthropocentric view of plants and other non-human beings. This shift in perspective can help us understand the root causes of environmental issues and overcome the obstacles preventing our individual growth. This new poetics founded on an imaginative view of plants as sentient, living beings that are linked to human memory and identity in a myriad of ways will undoubtedly contribute to the development of the field of plant humanities.
Perspectives
The connections between poetry and botanical consciousness have long been ignored until recently, when scholars such as Michael Marder, John C. Ryan, Emanuele Coccia, and Vanessa Lemm, among others, focused on the revelation of the ontological and phenomenological potential of plants. I see poetic language as capable of disclosing the subterranean connections between human and non-human life. Studying the work of Reshma Aquil and Sumana Roy, as a translator and scholar, I became more aware of how poetry can challenge the deep-seated view of plants as passive or peripheral beings. Thanks to Ellison Banks Findly’s book Plant Lives: Borderline Beings in Indian Traditions, I also discovered that arboreal images can be traced back to traditional religious and philosophical encounters with plant life in India.
Dr. Nesrin Eruysal
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This page is a summary of: Enchanting Encounters with Plants in Reshma Aquil and Sumana Roy’s Poems, May 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004721777_009.
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